4,373LADIES AND GENTLEMAN WE PASSED 3000 REVIEWS! You guys can't even begin to comprehend how much this means to me- this story has gotten me through so much and it means the world to me and the fact that this happened is out of this world. In celebration I have brought you this wonderful chapter filled with love and angst and pain :)
Also, there is a semi-makeout session down there (AND THE CROWD GOES WILD) but if that kind of thing makes you uncomfortable, this is your warning.
And finally, last chapter I asked you guys your favorite abilities and now I have the results! Drumroll please...
In a three-way tie for 1st with 17 votes: Percy, Will, and the Stoll brothers! 2nd with 12 votes: Annabeth. 3rd with 11: Juniper. 4th with 6: Nico. And lastly, 2 votes for Thalia and 1 for Grover.
A cold emptiness washed over me, sending goosebumps up my arms. Panic and fear welled up inside of me, my throat completely unable to produce a single sound. I could not move any part of my body, my feet, my hands... nothing. I was paralyzed.
Cold, icy fingers wrapped around my exposed neck.
"You've failed, Percy Jackson," came a chilling whisper in my ear, "You've failed."
I sat up in bed, rubbing my temples and recalling the haunting nightmare that had just repeated itself in my sleep. It was still the middle of the night; the room was pitch black as my eyes were forced to adjust. I felt Annabeth stir next to me, probably wondering why she wasn't using my shoulder as a pillow anymore, and sit up. I brought my hand over to her, smoothing down her disheveled curls and trying to calm myself and bring my heart rate down from the nightmare to a healthy level.
"Another nightmare?" Annabeth asked, rubbing her eyes, voice still groggy from sleep.
I nodded, taking in a deep sigh.
"Go back to bed; I'll be fine," I reassured her.
Even in the darkness, I could feel her eyebrow raise.
"I know what recurring nightmares are like, Percy," she reasoned, reaching over my lap and turning the lamp on, "I think we need to have a conversation."
The light from the small lamp burned my vision, but I kept my eyes wide.
"You've failed, Percy Jackson," came a chilling whisper in my ear, "You've failed."
"Percy," Annabeth shook my shoulder, trying to get my attention.
"Sorry, sorry," I apologized, shaking my head as if I was to shake my thoughts away.
Annabeth was watching me suspiciously, her normally bright eyes dulled from sleep. Her usually rowdy blonde curls were messy and the oversized sweater she had worn to bed had fallen over her shoulder, exposing her collarbone. Her stature was no-nonsense, but her eyes were just begging for sleep. Apparently after experiencing a normal sleeping pattern, her body adjusted rapidly as it was reminded what actual rest felt like again.
"What happened?" she whispered, eyes searching mine.
I sighed and looked down at her hands, wrapping mine around them and explaining to Annabeth my nightmare and what happened in the combat room. She listened contently to my story, eyes focused in on mine while trying to convey every piece of information I gave her. When I finished she frowned and bit her lip, her mind clearly swimming in questions.
"So let me get this straight, " she began, "You had a dream you were being chased by something, then that something randomly showed up while you were alone in the Combat room?"
I nodded. When she said it like that it sounded stupid and crazy.
Annabeth's eyes looked confused and tired as she met my gaze and sighed, her posture almost as though she didn't believe me. She pulled herself up and sat cross-legged beside me.
"Percy, " she began, voice unsure, "I understand the nightmare part. Being chased in your subconscious is a common occurrence in a dream, but I can't put together how whatever was chasing you would be in the combat room."
I opened my mouth to argue, but she cut me off.
"I trust your judgment to know something was in the room with you, " she watched my face, "but I don't understand how that could be the same thing from your nightmare."
"I just know, Annabeth," I argued.
She brought her hand to her temple in an exasperated gesture and closed her eyes.
"You don't have a mental ability, Percy," she explained, "I don't see how you could 'predict' something like that and have it happen in real life. It's possible the nightmare just freaked you out a bit."
It was my turn to sigh. Annabeth was right; it was very possible it could just be me freaking myself out. It was almost impossible for me to predict and even more impossible for it to actually happen.
But deep down, I knew what had happened. The same thing from my dream had been in that room with me, no doubt. I didn't know how, I didn't know why, but the deep pit in my stomach knew it had been there. And it knew it was going to happen again.
Annabeth searched my face contently, gray eyes swirling with her thoughts.
"Ok?" she asked.
I nodded and brought my head in my hands, "I don't think I can sleep again though."
She leaned down and planted a soft, tender kiss on my temple, letting her lips linger there long enough to momentarily drive me insane. I watched her climb out of bed and walk across the room to my desk, those long legs keeping my attention the entire time.
"Have you checked in your desk lately? " she asked, running her fingers over the wood.
"No, " I answered, watching her gray eyes fall to the handle of the drawer.
The drawer made a horrible creaking noise as Annabeth opened it. I pulled myself off of bed and walked over to the desk, standing closely behind Annabeth. I could feel her body heat from such a close distance and smell a faint trace of long-lasting perfume. I watched her eyes intensely examine what inside the drawer before she delicately reached her hand inside and pulled something out.
A manila folder sat in her hands as she turned to share, finding herself nose to nose with me. Her eyes glimmered as they trained on mine, my heart racing as every part of me sparked alive. She was so close I could feel her warm breath on my face, my hands itching at my sides to touch her.
She smirked, "This one doesn't look open."
Gracefully sidestepping me and thwarting any plans I had, she took a seat down in the chair and set the folder on the desk. She opened it gently, slightly unsure of it's contents. I leaned over her to see what secrets it held, setting my hand on the back of the chair.
The file held nothing but pictures, all of them a musty, black and white kind of old. There were at least a dozen of them, seemingly without an order, and scattered messily inside the file. Annabeth reached for the first one and held it up, examining the photograph. There seemed to be a dozen or so people all posed for the camera, some smiling, some not. Each person seemed so different from the others it made the picture look odd and awkward.
I scanned over the photograph, looking over each person closely. I had never seen any of them before, and from Annabeth's silence I took that she hadn't either. But, I had to admit, one man stood out to me. He was second to the middle, standing tall and regal without a smile, but that wasn't what caught my attention. Even though the photo was in black and white, his eyes stood out; you could tell they were a bright green.
The same green I saw when I looked in the mirror.
Annabeth set the photograph down next to her and went to examine the others, but I picked it up and brought it closer.
The man had messy black hair, same as mine, but he was stockier and shorter than I was. He held himself in a way that insinuated power and no-nonsense. I knew that if I met him in person I would be highly intimidated, but that didn't stop me from feeling something, some connection. My stomach churned inside me, a gut feeling making itself clear.
I had seen this man before.
Annabeth reached behind her and took the photograph from my hands, looking at it herself.
"What's so interesting about this one?"
I kept my eyes locked on the photograph in her hands.
"I think I've seen one of the men before," I admitted.
Annabeth swiveled her head, rowdy curls jumping from one shoulder to another, and stared at me with those stormy eyes.
"Which one?"
I leaned over her and set my finger below the man's face, "This one."
She brought the picture closer to her face and analyzed it silently, head spinning in a thousand directions. I watched her pupils shrink as she focused in on the green-eyed man and most likely racked her brain in case she had noticed him too.
"He looks like you," she spoke, turning to look at me.
I looked at the man in the photograph, then at down at Annabeth. She stared back up at me, waiting for an answer.
"He does, doesn't he?" I replied, mentally letting the photograph go, and turning around and walking away from Annabeth, closing the distance between me and the bed.
I plopped down on it, the springs screeching twice under my weight, and met Annabeth's unimpressed gaze. She rolled her eyes, not without a small smile, and turned back around to rummage through the rest of the photos.
I glanced outside the window; the world was pitch black, not one cabin with a single light on other than mine. The alarm clock by the bed read 4:30 AM. Classes started at 8:00 sharp, but students would be out of their cabins and wandering around the campus by 7:30. Nevertheless, Annabeth and I still had a while to go before dawn.
"Why don't you bring some of those over here?" I asked, my voice with a hint of mischief, surprising myself at my own request.
Annabeth turned in the chair and met my gaze, one eyebrow up, but a smile forming on her face. Those gleaming gray eyes looked me up and down once and gave a small laugh before gathering all the pictures up in her hands. Much to my surprise, she stood up and made her way over to the bed, staring me down the entire way.
When she came close enough she threw the pictures at me, most of them hitting me directly in the face, and laughed as she jumped onto the bed next to me. Her curls were still disheveled from sleep, but her eyes and smile were bright and beautiful. When I tackled her she let out a small scream and in a moment I had her pinned under me. We both grinned like idiots at each other, laughing like we hadn't in a long time.
I leaned my forehead on hers, staring into those sparkling gray eyes. There was never a moment their beauty didn't amaze me. I could feel her steady heartbeat under me and realized how long it'd been since we were this close.
I slid my hand down her arm, feeling Annabeth shudder and goosebumps rise to the surface as I went. She brought her face closer to mine, our lips barely brushing, clearly teasing. My mouth went dry; I felt the pressure of her hand on my waist as my body hovered over hers, everywhere we touched sparking alive.
I slowly closed the distance between us, feeling her soft, warm lips caress mine. Time slowed as I felt her heart beating evenly against my chest and pulled her closer. It was slow and suspenseful and everything inside of me melted into nothing but Annabeth, right there and then. She smiled against my lips and wrapped an arm around my neck, obliging to my silent request. It was a breathless, easy kiss, but I could feel the abundance of emotions buried behind it.
I felt something well up inside my chest: excitement, an ache. In an instant, my senses sparked to life; I could feel every ounce of warmth radiating between us and my heart beat against my chest with intensity. My body reacting to seemingly impulsion, I pressed myself against Annabeth, impulsively angling my head deeper and sliding my mouth over hers, changing the aura of the kiss entirely.
In an instant, Annabeth came back with just as much desperation; it felt like it had been an eternity since I had kissed her. Her lips pressed hard on mine, slightly painful but more addicting. I held her close and kissed her with everything I had, everything I felt. My feelings for Annabeth, my confusion for Goode, my unease for nightmares: everything came out like I was an open book. She wrapped herself around me and tangled her hands in my hair, as if she had never held someone so intensely.
We fit together perfectly; theres were no gaps between us, but I still ached to be closer. My hand slid up her back, skin feverish under my touch, until I found the small of her back and pressed her to me. She moved her hands to my chest, running them over my collarbone covered by the soft t-shirt. She drove me crazy; everything she did was so perfect, so passionate.
I brought my hand up to her neck, memorizing the curve of her shoulder, indentation of her collarbone, anything I could get my hands on. Annabeth finsing herself happy with her hands on my neck, I ran my hand down her arm agonizingly slowly, seemingly testing my self-control in a moment like this.
Annabeth abruptly pulled back from me, a gasp escaping her lips where mine just were. Her eyes were wide and her face was filled with shock; panic welled up inside of me, pouring out instantly.
"What happened?" I asked frantically, raking my eyes over her body to make sure she was okay, "Did I hurt you?"
Our chests rose up and down together, both catching our breath. She shook her head.
"No," she answered, sincere, "It's just..."
She trailed off, giving a swift nod towards her forearm where my hand lay. I looked down and noticed the long, white scar that made its way across her forearm; flashes and memories of Mr. Jones ran through the back of my mind. All I had done was touched it and startled her.
Too tired to become enraged at the thought of that man, I rolled off of Annabeth and laid on my back beside her. I turned my head towards her and took in everything. Her chest rose up and down as she caught her breath, her lips were swollen, her curls were sprawled all over the pillow, and her eyes were absolutely shining.
I turned and stared up at the ceiling. That had to be the hottest 3 minutes of my entire life, and it wasn't even 5:00.
"Higher, Percy! Higher!"
I took in a breath and gritted my teeth, the cold wind blowing down the beach doing nothing to help the sweat pouring down my face, and focused in on the geyser forming a few yards out into the river. A small shoot of water, around two inches in diameter, climbed about 200 feet in the air and continued increasing as my concentration steadied. Everyone's eyes were on me, Chiron was urging me to push harder, and a headache pounded at my skull, screaming to me to stop.
To be brief, it was a stressful Combat class.
I wanted to strengthen my ability, but I didn't know if this was exactly the way to do it. All any of us had heard from Chiron today was to push harder, last longer, concentrate. This was class, and he was the teacher, but so far all we got was a goal and no instruction on how to get there. I swear Nico got stuck in some weird shadow dimension, I thought we were going to have to give Connor and Travis mouth to mouth to keep them conscious, and Annabeth curled up in my lap for 20 minutes, head in her hands, fighting a beyond-brutal headache. To say the least, we were all a pretty big mess.
But, looking beyond the consequences, we had all exceeded what we knew we were capable of. Juniper knew what song a little girl was singing 40 miles away, Grover grew a small tree from a tiny seed, and Thalia controlled herself enough to do nothing but start a small camp fire. Our hard work was somewhat paying off, but in a quite unhealthy way.
But it was my turn, and I wasn't sure how everyone before me had made it. All I could think about was excelling; I had to one up myself and do better, as my peers did. With that mindset, every ounce of my concentration was on that shoot of water and determination seared through my veins.
Deep in my chest, I felt my heart beat faster and faster as I forced my attention on the water, willing it to go higher and higher. Chiron was talking to me, maybe even instructing me, but I couldn't hear him over the pain pulsing in my skull.
I had to do this. I could do this. Ignoring the pain as best I possibly could, the shoot of water went up 200 feet, 250 feet, 300... The ache in my head spread like a net, swallowing everything in it's path and replacing it with pain. The ringing in my ears was enough to bring me to the ground, and I could feel blood running down my nose and into my mouth.
I knew I should have stopped; I knew I had to stop, but something, either stubbornness or stupidity, urged me forward.
350 feet, 400 feet, 450...
Someone touched me, first lightly then harshly, but I kept my eyes on the water. I would do this. I would make this.
Nausea climbed up my body and my limbs immediately went completely numb. Someone was pulling me away now, and everything inside of me was screaming to stop, but I couldn't; the damage was done.
My head exploded, the excruciating pain pushing outward with the force beyond belief; my vision blurred and I collapsed to the ground, at least three sets of hands there to catch me. I faintly processed reaching up and clutching my head, but it didn't ease the stabbing in my skull.
My head was laid down in someone's lap, jeans recognized in the back of my mind as Annabeth's, but my vision was still beyond blurred. Through the ringing in my ears I heard multiple people yelling at each other, possibly barking orders and arguing. Someone was running their hands through my hair, more easing my conscious than my headache.
In my damaged state, panic still rose up inside of me; I had really screwed up this time. Another wave of nausea overcame me like a wave, and it took every ounce of will inside of me to keep from throwing up. My skull felt as though it was compressing inside of itself, turning itself inside out; the pain was beyond excruciating.
There was more yelling and angry barks before I felt someone's hands on me, slightly struggling as they lifted me off the ground. The weightlessness made my head spin, adding to the never-ending stabbing through my skull.
I fought through the pain to stay conscious, but there was nothing I could have done as my body went limp, darkness overcoming me.
I felt as if I was swimming through jello, my unconscious thick and heavy as I fought to wake up. As I made my way upward, small bits of my senses began working; my right hand was oddly tingling, I could faintly make out something slamming, and the stale smell of disinfectant filled my nostrils.
Bright light filled my vision, uncomfortably burning my eyes, and a groan to escaped my throat as I tried to move away.
"Percy."
Even before my eyes adjusted, I knew that voice anywhere. Annabeth.
I was in a brightly lit room, the walls uncomfortably white around me. Everything was eerily silent, not a single echo bounced around the walls, and the room was oddly stale smelling. Metal tables and trays were scattered throughout the room and medical equipment was evident everywhere you looked.
I was laying on a bed; the sheets were pure white and thin, and the mattress was rock hard under me. As I tried to sit up, my head ached in my skull. I grunted and brought my hand up to it, only to have Annabeth's placed over mine.
"Go on. Sit up."
I slowly pulled myself upward, every movement pushing through the pain. Annabeth had another hand pressed on my back and was helping me the whole way. My grip on the edge of the bed made my knuckles turn ghosty white, but I kept steadied. By the time I had my back to the wall and let out a breath I hadn't known I was holding, I felt as though I'd run a marathon.
"God, Annabeth," I met her soft gaze, "What happened?"
She met my gaze and frowned. She was wearing exactly what she had been wearing this morning, but her hair was thrown into a halfhearted bun and strands were falling out everywhere. Lines stretched across her forehead with worry and her eyes looked glassy and pained. I could tell she'd been sitting there for a while, and she only looked at me with relief.
"After you overdid it, " she began, tucking a curl behind her ear, "Chiron carried you here, the Infirmary, and Mark finally got you stabilized. You've been out cold for three periods; Chiron and Mark just stepped outside to talk. They should be back here soon."
I was in the Infirmary; that made sense, hence the medical equipment and disinfectant. My ability had knocked me out cold, but that didn't surprise me. From what I remembered, I was practically begging to pass out during that brain explosion. But three periods was a long time to be away from school.
"Did you stay the whole time?" I asked Annabeth.
She gave me a small smile, "Yeah. But we have to get back soon," urgency slipped into her voice, "Being gone for this long will start to raise suspicion from the school-"
"Percy!"
Annabeth and I both turned our heads to the sound of Chiron's bellowing.
Chiron looked rather disheveled; his hair was tousled and sticking up in the sides and his face was a mixture of relief and panic. He was taking long, determined strides to where I was, Mark in tow behind him. He covered the long room in record timing, and gripped the edge of the bed, looking me straight in eye.
"Percy," his voice was urgent and demanding, "I'm glad you're awake, but the school is worried; we had to inform Mr. Sedel you were in the infirmary. He's angry and on his way, but they can't know what we've been doing in Com-"
"Is he awake?"
The door slammed open and Mr. Sedel rushed through, his long legs allowing him to cover more ground than Chiron ever could. His intimidating gaze was directed right on me and his facial expression was far from happy; it took everything in me to not cower ever so slightly; I had woken up not 3 minutes ago and was already bombarded with demanding authority.
Right before he reached the bed, Annabeth jumped in front of me, putting herself between Mr. Sedel and I. Chiron was next, and his burly frame completely blocked my view of the headmaster.
"I need to know what happened, " Mr. Sedel began, attempting to side-step Annabeth.
Thanks to her ability, he stood no chance.
"He just woke up," she protested, standing tall in his path, "Give him some time to adjust; he might not even remember."
"Well someone had to get him here, right?" Mr. Sedel argued," And it's safe to assume you weren't the one to carry him all the way here, Miss Chase."
I felt him turn to Chiron, frustrated energy radiating off him in waves.
"That means you had to be present, Chiron," he insisted, "And from the vague report Mark gave me, it sounds like his ability caused this to happen, but this wasn't a time he was scheduled to work with you. So I ask, why were you allowing him to use his ability against school policy?"
Panic pulsed through my body; Mr. Sedel couldn't find out about Combat. It was my fault that we were even here and in this position; I was the one that overworked my ability, despite what instructions I had been given. This was my fault and I wouldn't let Chiron take the blame for it and get fired.
"He wasn't there," I protested, surprising myself at the sureness of my voice.
Both Chiron and Annabeth spun around at the same time, Chiron's face confused and surprised and Annabeth's eyes screaming at me to stop right there and shut up. Mr. Sedel saw their distraction as a weak link in their barrier and pushed his way through the two of them, making nothing between us but the side of the bed.
"Then what happened?" he insisted angrily, eyes glued on mine.
Mr. Sedel towered over me at his unnatural height and stared me down, no-nonsense filling every ounce of my brain; this guy wasn't joking around. Images of big, burly Legacies flashed in the back of my mind. I instinctively knew that if he realized I was lying, I would never be heard from on campus again.
"I had Social and Environmental first," I blurted of nowhere, not sure where to go with the story, inwardly screaming at myself to think faster and faster, "I was... I was working on my ability by mys-"
"-he was working on it with me, " Annabeth blurted out, interrupting in a split second and immediately took control of the lie, "I asked him to demonstrate it for the project; we're supposed to know everything about each other. That was the only thing I didn't know about him: his ability."
I felt as if the sky had been lifted off of my shoulders; my girlfriend was a genius.
"I overdid it and collapsed," I pitched in.
Chiron nodded briskly, going along with our lie, and turned to Mr. Sedel, "Annabeth was screaming next to the gym and I heard it. I carried Percy to Mark, and we notified you as soon as we got the situation under control."
Mr. Sedel stared down Chiron, his face completely emotionless. The three of us held our breaths; it wasn't a bad lie, but we couldn't prove anything in it, so he needed to buy it right then and there. Mr. Sedel looked from me, to Annabeth, to Chiron again. He was clearly conflicted on whether he should buy us or not.
"During Social and Environmental?" he asked, voice challenging as he went between Annabeth and I.
Annabeth and I both instantly both replied with a, "Yes."
Mr. Sedel nodded slowly to himself, his expression hard and eyes cold. His emotions were set; he had decided if he believed us or not. He stepped back from the bed so that he could see Annabeth, Chiron, and I clearly and took in a deep breath.
"Social and Environmental is a time where you are given absolute freedom," he frowned, "but, with that freedom, we expect you to be wise. Doing something along the lines of testing your ability while unsupervised, that's what makes us have to take that freedom away."
The tight, twisted knot in my stomach immediately disappeared into thin air with Mr. Sedel's stern words. Relief flooded my veins; any chance of coming face to face with Legacies was gone. I mean, how much could he have punished me? I was already lying on a cot in the Infirmary.
"Mr. Sedel, " Annabeth spoke slowly, as if she was just realizing something, "There's no rule at Goode against using your ability."
A hint of annoyance flashed in the back of Mr. Sedel's eyes.
"I'm aware Miss Chase, " he explained, "But when I get phone calls from two teachers telling me that a student is missing and then come to find out he's unconscious in the infirmary, that's when there needs to be one."
Annabeth's agonizing screaming and images of her rolling around helplessly on a cot in the infirmary popped into my head.
"What about Annabeth's ability," I challenged, my voice with a slight aggressive tint, "She used to be unconscious in here all the time and there were no worries for her."
Mr. Sedel met my eyes and hesitated for a split second, but then shook his head and spoke.
"She wasn't using her ability, " he explained, "It was just affecting her. There was nothing to be done but to wait it out."
I felt a surge of anger well up inside of me and gradually sink into my words.
"This is a school for abilities," I argued, trying my best to hold my tongue as much as I could, "If we actually used our abilities more often, then maybe we would react better to them and-"
"Percy."
Chiron stopped me, his eyes warning me to not go any further with that statement. We had already pissed the headmaster off enough, no need to do it even more.
Mr. Sedel's face turned hard, and his eyes were cold and penetrating as they stared me down; I had crossed the line and I knew it. Everything in me wanted to scream at him, make him realize that the policy wasn't right, but I held my tongue. Something about Mr. Sedel's posture, the uneasy tension he brought into the room, made me bite my tongue.
"You of all people should understand why we don't practice that," his voice was no-nonsense with a slight aggressive tone, "The last thing I need is freshman after freshman lying unconscious in the Infirmary for three periods."
Something churned in my stomach; his words were those of authority, but his tone was that of an aggressor. It was spiteful and hostile and left a bitter taste in my mouth. I felt Annabeth move slightly closer to me, feeling the taut tension in the room.
"You're special, Percy," he continued, "We allowed you time to exercise your abilities. We bended our own rules and gave you the opportunity to be great, to be the only one of your peers to fully master your abilities," Mr. Sedel looked me dead in the eye, "What more do you want from us?"
And with his words hanging in the air, filling every crack and crevice of the room, he turned around and left.
And the plot thickens...
Sadly, I only have a month of summer left (and 2 days until volleyball preseason), so updating may be slightly slow for a few months; I'm going to a new school that's academically and athletically more challenging, so it may take me a while to get used to that. But, never fear, I will always bring you another chapter :)
Before I rant, I just wanted to say that it's slightly concerning that I find it easier to write agonizing pain than make-out sessions. Just putting that out there.
Also, my children, I just wanted to remind everyone that this story is rated T. Now, the definition of T is: Suitable for teens, 13 years and older, with some violence, minor coarse language, and minor suggestive adult , T DOES suggest to adultish subjects. But since FanFiction is overrun with 11 year olds, I have gotten more than one review telling me to keep this story T. If you are 11 or so and these minor references to adultish subjects make you uncomfortable, I need you to remember that stories rated T are for 13 and up; you are reading them at your own risk. But I guarantee you that everything I write will be rated T, no questions asked. But, again, I can not remind you guys the definition of T too much.
On another note, I'm almost done with re-writing chapter 3 (the new version is more than 20 pages long) so stay tuned for that to come up soon!
New question of the chapter... What's your favorite line from the story?